Emerald Spire 41.0 - The Magelord Sasien
With the sanctum explored save for the third floor room, the group prepared to press forwards. However, they stopped on their way so that Kormon could further investigate the anti-magic field. With Amara's help and some experimentation, they found that the posts had to always be kept in a roughly circular arrangement: if one was brought too far away or threatened to intersect between other posts, the crystal in them began to vibrate increasingly ominously. Unenthused with the prospect of letting Kormon take an hour to chisel out the remaining four posts, they agreed to keep this device in mind as a backup plan and left it for the time being. Steeling themselves, they walked up the stairs towards the imposing double doors. Kormon pushed them aside to reveal a staircase which, after proceeding straight upwards for about thirty paces, curved to the right around a cylindrical pillar. The group marched up the stairs, three turns around the pillar, until they found something strange: a sitting nook, furnished tastefully with two couches, a small table and a flower arrangement, was carved into the central pillar. An investigation revealed nothing so they carried on up the stairs, only to come by an identical nook. Thorough exploration of the area revealed that the nook was subtly enchanted in some fashion with a conjuration spell, and that the stairs themselves led nowhere; rather, they endlessly looped past this little room so that anyone who climbed the stairs would just find themselves back where they started. The fact that descending the stairs still led the traveler back to the double doors and the foyer was comforting, but the group was stymied by the magic. Eventually, knowing that the nook was somehow key to progressing and that the designer of this structure was nothing if not lazy and reclusive, the group decided to take a well-earned rest, spending the 'night' sleeping uneventfully on the extremely comfortable couches. Refreshed and ready to continue, Marin and Kormon decided to try going in opposite directions while Amara and Ismail stayed at the nook. Going down, Marin found the same double door exit that had led them in; Kormon, however, found something new. This time, after passing around the pillar several times, he found not the nook again but rather the stairs straightened and led towards a new set of doors. Kormon quickly called the others up and they proceeded forwards. The doors opened up almost directly into a wall with paths going to the right and left; taking one, they found both paths led up and into a large hall that was not unlike a lecture theater, with the paths leading them around a wall set with thousands of scrying windows like those they had found in the laboratory floor. Each window showed a different location: none were from within the spire, so far as they could tell, and displayed views of wilderness, farms, villages, cities and other places from across most of the southern half of the continent, if the few visible landmarks were to be believed. A number of the screens seemed broken but a closer investigation suggested that instead the images were being blocked on the other end, as though darkness or objects happened to be impeding the view. On the far end of the hall was the only item of note in the room. A large chair sat nestled among a large growth of glowing Conjurer's Crystal that jutted up around it. Seated slumped in the chair was a humanoid figure dressed in robes, wearing a green crystal mask. If the statues they had seen were any indication, this was the Magelord of Conjuration, Sasien Tol L'ren. The figure hadn't moved or reacted to the intrusion and continued to lie motionless. Marin ventured closer to the chair, noting a strange patch of floor on the way, and even braved touching the body; his barest of investigation, consisting of lightly grabbing the wrist to take a pulse, revealed that it was not living and perhaps wasn't made of once-living tissue either. Kormon investigated the patch of floor more carefully. A quick investigation, as well as the rather forcible application of the business end of his pick, revealed that there was a thin panel of Conjurer's Crystal in the center of the floor that was hollow beneath. Kormon broke through the top and pulled it aside like a manhole cover to reveal a concealed, dark shaft that plunged straight down. The sides of the shaft were sheer, unbroken crystal, smoothed down to be like a straw piercing through the natural rock. Determining that this was the way forwards, hopefully to the base of the spire itself, the group considered how they were going to descend seeing as how there appeared to be no stairs, elevator or even handholds to assist them in what was undoubtedly a terrible fall. After much debate, the group had Amara cast Fly on who she could, letting Kormon carry Marin. As they got into position to descend, suddenly they all felt various amounts of tugging on their clothes. Everything they carried on them the was made of Conjurer's Crystal, from the teleportation keys to the robot power cores to Kormon's beloved pickaxe, flew from their bodies as though caught by a magnet. Though Marin and Kormon managed to hang onto the pick, the rest rolled along the floor to rest at the feet of the immobile body. Unwilling to just leave without all of their belongings, they began to test the limits of this strange phenomena. No matter how good their aim, they seemed unable to even throw objects down the shaft; something subtly altered their trajectories while in the air so that they hit the floor and rolled safely away. Turning their attentions back to the ominous robed figure, they began to wonder precisely how it played into their dilemma. Marin investigated the body more closely, feeling it through its clothes and going so far as to try and remove its mask. However, all he learned was that the mask was fused to the rest of the body which was itself made of Conjurer's Crystal. They took the figure and laid it out on the floor, after which Marin and Kormon vied to sit in the now-empty throne. Marin had fun assuming the appearance of the Magelord using his ioun stone, but they gained no further insights from either the chair or the crystal growing around it. Eventually growing bored, Marin offered the body's enchanted clothes up to Amara, who was a bit hesitant in taking them but was eventually won over by their arguments. When Marin went to disrobe the body, however, it spoke: it had decided that this had gotten awkward enough. None of the adventurers were particularly shocked when the Magelord picked themselves up, dusted themselves off and returned to their seat, but they had numerous questions for the apparent golem who had been seemingly content to just let them wander and put their hands all over them, but yet not let them take any of their crystal possessions downstairs. Sasien answered their questions somewhat dismissively but rather openly: they didn't care about people wandering around and they didn't care about people trying to take over the spire. People had tried before, numerous times, and each time they underestimated the power of the crystal and eventually destroyed themselves trying to use it. Sasien had assumed that, if they played dead, then the four of them would simply leave, but alas, they didn't want to go to the trouble of getting new clothes and hadn't wanted to be left naked, for what they felt were obvious reasons. When asked why they weren't allowed to take their crystalline possessions with them downstairs, Sasien implied that it was because they might possibly damage the spire using them; this was the information they had been waiting for. Category:Emerald Spire